


Adam & Eve

by criacuervos



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Small Town, F/M, Lee and Serafina are Lyra's foster parents, Underage Drinking, biblical fanfic masquerading as hdm fanfic, everyone has daemons, in which Will has a crush, rated T for swear words and that i guess, the panjava portrayed here is based off the tv show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29412915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/criacuervos/pseuds/criacuervos
Summary: Lyra smiled at him, her earrings swaying almost imperceptibly against her cheeks from all the movement she’d done. Will understood why Adam would take a bite from the apple on Eve’s hand, instead of dropping it to the dirt.
Relationships: Lyra Belacqua/Will Parry, mentioned Lee Scoresby/Serafina Pekkala
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	Adam & Eve

Will had always thought of Lyra Belacqua as the girl with the red apple earrings, even now, when people were calling her other things. Some were mistakes of hatred for jealousy (“the princess” even though Asriel Belacqua was actually a lord with old family money Lyra had none of), and others were recent and insensitive (“the missing girl” and “isn’t she the friend of the boy who died?” which was a question passed as an epithet). Will’s tagline for her had always been the red apple earrings, _Lyra Belacqua of the red apple earrings._ She sat in front of him in Literature, had been sitting in front of him for two years in a row in that class, and when they read _Paradise Lost_ and the teacher read the passage about the apple, Will thought: _just like your earrings._ Like if Lyra Belacqua could hear his thoughts.

Her bicycle was chained across from Will’s. Fridays were bicycle day for Lyra Belacqua, as well as Mondays and Wednesdays. The other days Lee Scoresby (foster father, a fact Will knew first through the collective consciousness of small towns and then because he was directly told) picked her up in a pick-up truck. Sometimes his girlfriend, a woman named Serafina Pekkala, would pick Lyra instead but on a motorcycle.

Today was Wednesday.

Will had to stay behind to take a test he’d missed last week. Lyra usually would have had detention, but no one wanted to give her detention now, the counsellor had probably called Lyra to her office. So, they were the last two in the parking lot apart from the principal and his husband, the librarian, loading their car with boxes. Will couldn’t see of what.

The chains of the bicycles made noise on the metal of the rack. Will’s dæmon and Lyra’s dæmon were perched on the rack like birds — Kirjava as a starling and Pantalaimon, Lyra Belacqua’s dæmon, as a magpie. The shadows were long as the afternoon started to close, mixing dark yellows with blues.

Will rode his bicycle home every day of the week. He still wasn’t old enough to drive and even if he was his mum didn’t have a car, anyways. Lyra once told him she liked they both had baskets on their bicycles for their dæmons.

They had been classmates for forever (for as long as Will had lived here, so since the last year of primary school up to now, senior year). They were friendlier than Will was in average to his other classmates, which wasn’t hard, he was a very speak-when-spoken-to kind of person and smiled at Lyra down the hallway because she smiled at him too. They had done group projects together and solved chapter questionnaires when the teacher said they could do it in pairs.

What that meant is that Will didn’t have to start a conversation right now. Lyra didn’t look like she wanted to talk to anyone. He overheard she got into a fight with Angelica Ricci on Monday because Angelica looked at Lyra funny. Though Lyra didn’t seem to have any bruises on her, and neither had Angelica. Lyra had been sitting on her usual hang-out place on the roof, a blind spot away from the teachers and faced towards the field where they had P.E. She had been alone.

And still, Pantalaimon said, “Hi, Will.”

Lyra didn’t look up from unchaining her bicycle. She didn’t but she did want to talk to him — did and didn’t because part of her had just initiated conversation with Will but her mouth was pressed tight, biting her lips into her mouth.

“Hi,” said Kirjava for Will.

“Detention again?” Will asked, for some normality.

“Dr. Malone wanted to talk to me,” Lyra said. Dr. Malone was the school counsellor, Will had gone to see her biweekly for a month when he and his mother first moved to Jericho.

Will offered Lyra an awkward, “Oh”.

The red apple earrings dangled from her ears, the only pop of colour in all of her against the washed-out baby blue of her overalls and the white shirt sprinkled in little grey stars. Will didn’t think she would take a humorous _‘at least that’s a change of pace’_ , he was sure Lyra would rather have detention with Mr. Polstead than having to see the counsellor about her dead friend. Roger Parslow, who would have been sitting with Lyra on the roof instead of her being alone with Pantalaimon.

Kirjava whispered a quiet, _“Will”,_ and he realised his hands were on the security chain, unmoving, and Lyra had already freed her own bike. He hurried with that and put the chain in his backpack.

“Hey, Lyra?” Will said.

It felt strange when she looked at him without a smile.

“I don’t know if anyone in school has told you this, but I’m glad you’re okay.”

Most people must have probably told her they were sorry for what happened to Roger Parslow but not about being relieved that at least _she_ was alive.

Lyra dabbed the corner of her eye. “Thank you, Will.”

He grabbed the handlebars of his bicycle and Lyra did the same with hers. Their respective dæmons jumped to their respective baskets, changing into their preferred forms (the ones they would write on official school forms next to the _if unsettled please name at least two recurring animals_ ), Pantalaimon was a pine-marten and Kirjava a grey Norwegian forest cat. They walked together to the sidewalk.

Will slowed down when he noticed Lyra stopped. She was looking through her phone, then started to type. Will just… waited for her. He didn’t have to, and when he realised he didn’t have to and he was still there and Pantalaimon had looked away from Lyra’s screen and towards him, Will said:

“I can walk you home, or well, _bike_ you home.”

Lyra looked up. She exchanged a look with Pantalaimon, then said, “I’m good.”

“I know,” Will said, swallowed. “But I want to.”

If pine-martens could grin, then Pantalaimon was doing it.

Lyra finished typing whatever she had been and put her phone back in the pocket of her overalls. She nodded and mounted her bike, Will copied her. They pedalled away from the school.

* * *

A neon sign that read PSYCHIC under an also neon eye shone from a downstairs window in Lyra’s house. Though the landmark most people used was the forty-five meters tall cloud-pine on the front yard. Lyra bought her clothes at the thrift store where Will bought his because, despite her dad being a nobleman (in name only, he wasn’t the earl of any land or estate), Lee Scoresby was a mechanic with sporadic aeronaut jobs and Serafina Pekkala was a psychic and a witch. Or at least that’s what everyone said and what the neon sign was announcing, no one was sure if it was a bluff. 

Lyra dug the rubber heels of her shoes on the gravel to stop her bike. Will was more sensible and pressed down on the breaks.

Lights were on inside and the curtains were only of lace, so it was easy to take a peek. Will caught sight of Serafina Pekkala, or more like he caught sight of her dæmon: a goose, easy to identify.

Right across the street were the apartments where Alice Lonsdale lived (second floor), and where Roger Parslow used to live.

Will opened his mouth to say _W_ _ell, here we are, I’ll see you tomorrow. I should get back to my mum._ But when he looked at Lyra she was just staring at her foster mother through the window, gripping the handlebars of the bicycle, without any desire to go inside. Pantalaimon barely moved on the basket.

“Hey.” Lyra turned to him. “Wanna see something cool?”

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Will said. “Won’t your— Won’t they be waiting for you?”

He wanted to add _since you went missing_ but also didn’t want to bring it up just like that. Lyra only shrugged and looked more like herself again. “I’ll text Lee that I got held up,” she said. She put her feet back on the pedals and was already rolling before Will could make up his mind. Guess he was following. He could text his mum too.

* * *

The afternoon kept advancing, the sky became blacker, the streets darker in the wait of the automatic lampposts. Angels sat on the tallest roofs, wings shimmering. Will and Lyra rolled by kids playing football on the street, their dæmons going from running to flying around. He had no idea where she was taking him until they were practically there.

Lyra dug her heels on the asphalt again. Will hit the breaks. They were in the tunnel underneath the highway, the liminal space between the vacuum of small Jericho and _the world._ The cars that passed above them never glanced down at Jericho and so they remained untouched, unaffected by the outside. The outside was where Will came from, it was where he went to the movies once with Lyra and Roger Parslow to watch an animated film _they_ had wanted to watch and Will was just happy to be included, considered. Mr. Scoresby drove them and had then dropped Will at his mother’s house. It was how he knew Lyra and Roger were neighbours.

“It’s over here,” Lyra said.

There were no cars passing through the tunnel at this hour. Only the rumble and _whoosh_ of those above. Jericho’s side of the tunnel had been covered in a mural of the rising sun, commissioned by the church’s youth group which had the money for such things. The inside was still covered in graffities but Will heard from Brenda Polstead at The Trout that Jericho was funding to paint them over.

Will kicked the stand of his bike and left it next to Lyra’s. Pantalaimon and Kirjava jumped from the baskets, each turned into passerine birds to easily perch on the corresponding shoulder. “Text Mum,” Kirjava said, now a blue tit.

Lyra called for him, “Parry, it’s here, come see.”

“I’m right here,” Will said, “just have to let my mum know why I’m not home yet.”

He reworded the text three times, and decided to leave it at just: _i_ _’ll be home a little later than usual. i’m out with a friend. i’m safe._ He put the phone back in the pocket of his hoodie. Lyra was standing on the fringe of the exit of Jericho. The graffities accumulated over one another, nonsensical, and Will looked for about five seconds without finding anything concrete to lay his eyes on.

“What am I looking at?”

Pantalaimon was a european finch on Lyra’s shoulder. “It’s a prophecy, look.”

It still took Will a moment but he saw it, written on the body of a brightly coloured snake with a diamond head. The prophecy read: _Eve is destined to bring the end of destiny._ Will read it aloud for good measure, to show Lyra he had found it and she was smiling when he looked at her. Less tense, more cheeky.

“How is that a prophecy?” Will asked.

“It has _destined_ and _destiny_ on it, can’t get more prophecy than that,” Lyra said. “I even asked Serafina and she said it’s The World.”

“The World?”

“Yeah, you know, _The World._ The last card of the major arcana in tarot. You know what The World means?” Will did not but he didn’t have to shake his head, Lyra hadn’t stopped talking. “The World is wholeness, achievement, fulfillment and completion. This prophecy is a big deal.”

“Who’s Eve?”

Lyra sighed and she shrugged. “Dunno. Would love to, though.”

Will didn’t know any Eves in Jericho.

“We asked about it— her—” said Pantalaimon, “—but the answer was fuzzy.”

“Asked who?”

“My alethiometer.”

“You have one of those?”

Lyra hummed an _mhm._ “I’m going for Alethiometri— Alethiometro— Alethiomitrolo— Ugh, Pan, how was it?”

Her little groan of complaint made Will smile.

“Alethio— Alethiology, right?” said Pantalaimon.

“Doesn’t the _meter_ go in there somewhere? Because it’s not really the study of the truth it’s the study of the alethiometer. Hold on.” Lyra sighed and dug her phone from her overalls.

Will smiled still, hands in his own pockets. Lyra and Pantalaimon both looked at the phone screen and Will watched colours reflect off their faces in the dark tunnel. The lights by the ceiling hadn’t worked in what felt like years, so as the evening began to take over and the afternoon was finally laid to rest, the tunnel was pitch black and the graffities blended together into an eldritch entity with too many mouths and too many eyes and too many names.

“Alethiology & Symbology,” Lyra read out loud. “Wait, really? Is that what it is? Where did I get the _meter_ from?”

“Is that what you are gonna study in uni?” Will asked.

Lyra looked at him. “Yeah, yeah, that’s it. Though I could have sworn it was called something else. It’s not official yet but I am planning on going to St. Sophia’s. Far, far away from middle-of-nowhere Jericho.”

“That’s cool,” Will said. “That you know what you wanna do.”

“You, not a clue, huh?”

Will shrugged.

“What about boxing champion?” Lyra smiled. “You’re pretty good.”

“I don’t really think I’d want to do that for a living.”

Light flooded the tunnel, followed by honking made twice as loud by the walls. Will turned to look and had to shield his eyes against the glare from a pair of car headlights — his bike and Lyra’s were parked right in the middle of the road. They hurried over to get them out of the way. The driver, Will didn’t catch who it was, but they stuck a hand out the window to wave, a thank you, and they drove off. When the headlights and rearlights were gone the darkness of the tunnel seemed so much more present.

Will swallowed down a dry throat. He looked for words to say to get a conversation going again, but he didn’t have to, Lyra was on a roll. She had a ball rolling, not tight-lipped and quiet anymore, and she looked like she was trying to make up for something. Will could almost name it but he wasn’t going to because Lyra turned to him again, still not ready to tell him _goodnight_ and _I had a good time._ Either she genuinely wanted his company specifically or she would just about take anything to drag into her ideas, Will didn’t care. He tightened the hold on the handlebar of his bike and Kirjava trilled. (Pantalaimon must have noticed but finches can’t grin the same way seventeen-year-old girls can).

“You know what we should do?” Lyra said. “What are your opinions on wine?”

One thought didn’t connect to the other. Will didn’t know what to answer.

“Wine?” Kirjava decided for him.

“It tastes like the bloody devil.” Lyra grinned like Pantalaimon must have wanted to. “You’ll love it, come on.”

* * *

Kirjava and Pantalaimon decided to fly this time. Forewent the passerine forms for little raptor birds, Kirjava a merlin hawk and Pantalaimon a kestrel. They did twists and turns in the air and Will tried to keep up with Lyra on the road, his bike kicking up bits of rock.

His mum had texted back with: _please be safe. i_ _’ll wait up for you. the porch light is on. i love you._ Will wanted to tell her she didn’t have to _wait up_ for him. How likely was it that Lyra would take him all over Jericho and make him get back home past 12am on a school night? His mum would still be awake when he got back, he was sure.

Lyra traded an old favour with Tony Costa, from the fish shop by the canal, for a bottle of wine. He was alone at the shop but glanced three times over his shoulder to make sure his mother wasn’t coming back from wherever she’d gone off to. Mimed zipping his mouth shut and throwing away the key, and said, “If you rat me out for giving you alcohol I’m taking you down with me, Lyra.” She only scrunched up her nose in response to the threat.

The bottle was now in the basket of Lyra’s bike.

They rolled into the park, the tires scraping down cobbled paths now. The lampposts were on and Lyra didn’t stop until they reached a pond. Will parked his bike where she did and then crossed the pond on some stepping stones after Lyra. Their dæmons perched on the back of a bench underneath a white willow.

“Alright,” said Lyra.

When they were sitting, Will noticed the wine glass Lyra had with her as well. She used her teeth — and Pantalaimon’s help — to pull out the cork. She laughed when it popped, laughed with triumph, and Will smiled at her smile. The closest lamppost was on the other side of the white willow so the light dappled through the leaves and danced around with the breeze.

“Alright, alright,” Lyra said again.

She poured the wine into the cup. Her legs criss-crossed on top of the bench and she turned to face Will. He turned too but didn’t cross his legs, he wasn’t nearly as short as Lyra to do so comfortably on this bench.

“You take the first taste.” Lyra offered him the cup, it was only half-full.

“Why are we doing this?” Will didn’t grab the cup.

“Why not?” asked Lyra. “Little healthy rebellion, good for the soul. I could have dragged you to do something way worse.”

“Shoplifting?” Will grabbed the cup. Lyra’s fingers were cold.

“Throwing rocks at people’s houses.” She leaned against the back of the bench, the red apple earrings caught winks of light. “Trespassing of private property. Roger and I have this list of buildings we haven’t been able to find a way to the roof of—” Her mouth halted just before continuing the thought and Lyra’s cheery expression froze, slowly melted away. “Well, we _had._ ”

The crickets were particularly loud in the park. Will also caught an exchange between two nightingales from different trees, one responding to the trill of the other.

“Lyra?” Will’s voice was quiet.

“Are you gonna drink?” she asked in return.

Will looked at the light that bounced off the red wine, though it looked black in the partial darkness. He took a measured little sip and nearly spat it out, but it was worth it for the breathy laugh he caught from Lyra and the amused screech kestrel-Pantalaimon gave. “Why do people drink that?” Will asked. Lyra steadied his hand and grabbed the cup from him, taking her own sip, she didn’t splutter but her nose scrunched up at the taste.

“You get used to it.”

“You do this a lot?”

Lyra shrugged, and took another sip. “Your mum’s not worried about you, right?”

“No, no.” Will took his phone from his pocket, no new messages. “I told her not to worry. But… won’t _your_ parents be worried? Since— well…”

“I also told them not to worry.” Pantalaimon had turned into an ermine, he nuzzled Lyra’s cheek that was close enough with her head slightly tilted. “Besides, I don’t want to go home yet. I don’t want Lee to coddle me so I don’t cry or for Serafina to cook me my comfort meal for the fifth night in a row.”

“You brought me here because you thought I won’t give you pity,” Will said.

“Are you going to?” Lyra tilted her head to the opposite side, lifting her chin, a challenge, but Will was sure she was tearing up.

“Well, I _am_ sorry for what happened to Roger and that you had to be there.”

“God.” Lyra took a heartier swing from the wine and Pantalaimon sneezed in sympathy to her reflexive cough. “Who even told everyone what happened? It feels like I got back and they all knew already.”

“Small town law of gossip.”

“I hate that,” her voice quieted. “You wanna drink more of the wine or should I finish it?”

Will was not enjoying the aftertaste but, what the hell, why not? He grabbed the cup and took first another sip and then a gulp. Kirjava laughed at his low groan of distaste but tousled her whiskers when it hit her too, she was a calico cat now.

“I also—” said Lyra “— brought you here because I like your company, Parry.”

Will exhaled a laugh and looked at Kirjava so he didn’t have to look at Lyra. “Thank you, Belacqua.”

“You were supposed to say: _I like your company too._ ”

He laughed again. “I like your company too.”

“I didn’t mean to make it seem like I was giving you the cold shoulder. I know—” Lyra paused to take in a noisy deep breath. “I _know_ what happened wasn’t my fault, Dr. Malone keeps saying that, but I can’t help but blame myself.”

Lyra was definitely teary-eyed. She wasn’t looking at him anymore, she was worrying the purposeful rips on her overalls. The lamppost light was coming from behind her so her face was three-quarters obscured. She kept biting into her mouth and pulling like nibbling off the skin from inside it.

“Are you waiting for someone to forgive you?” Kirjava asked. Will was glad it was her who did, her voice made it sound sensible, he was sure he would have made it come off the wrong way.

“I want Roger to forgive me.” Lyra said, voice even so as not to trigger the crying with a knot in her throat. “Maybe I should pray for forgiveness, my mother would have solved this situation like _that._ ” Lyra snapped her fingers and groaned, letting her head hang. Pantalaimon touched her nose to his.

“Will,” said Kirjava, voice quiet. “We’ve still got those apple slices in our backpack.”

“Apple slices?” Pantalaimon asked. They were mere inches from each other, even whispering of course they heard Kirjava.

With a “right, right” Will put the wine glass on the bench to root in his backpack. Lyra craned her neck to look. Will turned again with a ziplock baggie still half-full with apple slices.

“Since you brought the drink,” he said. “I’ll contribute the food?” It came out as a question at the end.

Lyra exchanged a look with Pantalaimon. “I don’t see why not,” her dæmon said.

The centres of the slices were browning. Lyra grabbed two. Will grabbed one, he waited for Lyra to finish one of hers before he spoke again. He twirled his slice between two fingers, the baggie resting on his knee with the rest.

“I could have talked to you first,” he said. “You were the one who had just gone through something.”

“You did text me,” said Lyra cutting a bite of her second apple slice with her front teeth. “I just only texted back with stickers because I didn’t know what to say.”

“I asked how you were,” said Will. “A stupid question, obviously you weren’t okay.”

And they were only casual friends, right? Smile down the hallway, maybe a lift home, maybe an invitation to go to the movies, go to each other’s houses for homework or group revising for an exam only, only text conversations asking about class notes. Their previous texting history had also been about asking school favours. Homework or printing an assignment. Hallway and classroom friendship. Will _thinking_ about Lyra and her earrings and her fluttering in his stomach from that one time she fell asleep on the bus back from a school trip and her head fell on his shoulder instead of Roger’s… that didn’t mean they were the sort of friends that would call each other at 12am on a school night so Lyra could tell him everything that happened, get that load off her chest.

“I mean, I _was— am_ okay. At least I wasn’t dead at the bottom of a cliff.”

She grabbed the baggie and took two more apple slices. She broke one off with her teeth again and offered a little piece to Pantalaimon, who didn’t change out of the ermine form so he couldn’t really hold his own slice currently. Will ate the slice he was still holding.

He thought of the Eve of the tunnel and looked at Lyra’s red apple earrings.

“Do you think the Eve of the prophecy is Biblical Eve?”

Lyra hummed. “I dunno, actually. Don’t think so. How could that Eve bring about _the end of destiny,_ or whatever the fuck? If destiny has been dead since the beginning then I have no idea what Serafina has been charging people for this whole time.”

Her little laugh got stuck in her throat as a snort and it made Will smile. A little laugh escaped him too.

“And there’s no Adam,” Will said.

“Adam is kind of irrelevant, anyways,” said Lyra. She raised the second apple slice she had taken, leaned forward just a bit as if to emphasise, Will felt Kirjava prick her ears to externalise the way he felt drawn to lean forward too but didn’t. Because the flustered lodge in his throat was just a tad more present. “It was Eve who ate the Apple of Eden.”

“Didn’t Adam eat it too?”

“She ate it first, it was her choice.”

“Wasn’t she tricked?”

“She still chose to eat it, she could have just told the Devil no.”

Will swallowed. “Then why didn’t she just stay in Paradise forever?”

Lyra shrugged, tilting her head to one side and her red apple earrings sparkled. “I think she was bored. What would she and Adam have done there for eternity, anyway?”

“Well, it was literal Paradise.”

“But it was _so_ monotonous. Being happy forever? How do you even know _when_ you are happy if you are always happy?”

Will smiled. “It was so monotonous,” he echoed, but without any of the cadences from Lyra’s tone. “Was it? Because Adam and Eve could do everything _but_ eat from the one Tree.”

“Yes, it was very boring.”

“How would you know?”

Lyra, biting half of her lower lip into her mouth, shrugged. She’d lifted her knees to cross her arms on top of them and leaned all her weight on the backrest of the bench. Will copied her, leaning on the backrest too and Kirjava’s whiskers ticked his cheek when he tilted his head like Lyra was doing. When they read _Paradise Lost_ in class Lyra had rested her pro-Eve case with _“yes, it was her fault the Fall happened, and so what?”_

“So…” he said.

“So?” Lyra echoed, grabbing the plastic baggie in full to fish out the last two slices.

“About that list you’ve got of the roofs you haven’t climbed… could I maybe chime in? Not to replace anyone,” Will hurried to say. Lyra munched on the apple, eyebrows a little raised. “I just got curious. Which ones haven’t you climbed?”

“Roger and I never found an entrance to the Torre degli Angeli, so that’s one of them. We also could never decide which houses were fair game. You think it would be rude to just jump onto someone’s roof while they are having dinner?”

“Like that’d stop you,” Pantalaimon said.

Lyra ignored him. “We’d only been counting the big houses.” She munched on the apple slices. “You don’t really look the type to trespass.”

“I can be adventurous!” Will’s tone was half-insulted and half-laughing. Kirjava tousled her whiskers and purred, she sounded like an engine motor.

“Fine.” Lyra stuck out her chin. “You’ll prove it to me tomorrow. You’ll climb to the school roof with me for lunch and then, _maybe,_ I’ll believe you might step it up and climb to the church’s roof.”

Will sighed, another sort of-laugh. He looked down and ate the last of the apple slice he was still holding. Lyra won him to asking if he could join her for lunch, he was glad she did. He might have made her sound pitiful if he had asked, even Kirjava might have not been able to save it.

Kirjava did have to be the one to answer, she said, “We’ll provide the food if you provide the drinks.”

Lyra beamed, it fluttered inside Will’s chest. “It’s a date,” she said. Her voice had a quiet cadence, bashful, Pantalaimon’s whiskers twitched.

There was another trill of a nightingale. It filled the silence that fell after her words but it wasn’t awkward. The crickets continued in orchestra around the pond, there were even some frogs that were times louder than the crickets.

Will grabbed the empty plastic baggie from Lyra’s knee and balled it up, putting it in his backpack.

“Oh,” Lyra said. “Sorry, I guess I ate them all.”

“It’s fine,” Will said. “Not the biggest fan of apples, anyways.”

She was halfway into parting the last slice down the middle with her teeth. She chewed what she got into her mouth and offered the last piece to Will, a well-meaning apology for hogging the food. Lyra smiled at him, her earrings swaying almost imperceptibly against her cheeks from all the movement she’d done. Will understood why Adam would take a bite from the apple on Eve’s hand, instead of dropping it to the dirt.

The back of Will’s throat still had the taste of the wine. He didn’t know if he was drunk at all and if he would be able to tell if he was. His head leaned forward before he thought to grab the apple slice with his fingers, having intended to take it with his teeth. It did make Lyra breathe a little laugh and Will blushed but (again) it was worth it.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Thank _you_ ,” Lyra Belacqua said, “the apple was yours.”

From her pocket came a short twinkly tune, a notification. Will’s phone also pinged from his own pocket. They checked respectively, on the lockscreen was a new message from his mum: _baby are you coming home? i don_ _’t want you out late. you have school tomorrow._ Will looked up at Lyra. He didn’t want to leave but now he had a reason to be giddy for tomorrow. When he opened his mouth, Lyra spoke instead.

“It’s Lee, my dad. He’s asking where I am.” She breathed in through her nose, exhaled. “I should… probably head home. If I don’t he’s gonna come looking for me.”

“I actually have to go home too, anyways.”

Lyra grabbed the wine bottle and the glass. Pantalaimon flew to her shoulder as a finch once more, Kirjava perched on Will’s shoulder as well but as a robin.

“Did you like the wine at all?” Lyra asked him as they hopped on the stepping stones of the pond, back to where they had left their bicycles. Will only made a face to respond to the question and Lyra snorted.

* * *

On the way back they stopped so she could slip the bottle to Tony Costa through a window, and he gave her another warning but non-verbal this time, in the form of an _i_ _’m watching you_ gesture. Will’s heart climbed up his throat as he pedalled next to Lyra. He didn’t take the turn to head for his house so he was apparently going to drop her off directly at her doorstep. Something Kirjava pointed out in their mind with a: _that_ _’s so gentlemanly of us._ It was almost teasing, and from his own dæmon.

He kicked up the stand of the bicycle right on the curb, walked with Lyra up the door. She simply dropped her own bicycle in the front yard, no leaning it against the wall, no nothing. Will had _goodnight_ and _see you tomorrow_ right on his tongue, but he didn’t want to say it until the very last second. Just as Lyra opened the door, maybe a moment before so he didn’t have to face Mr. Scoresby and Miss Pekkala and explain their daughter was off with him. He’d be teased enough by his own mum when he had to explain it to her.

Lyra Belacqua bit into the inside of her mouth and she whirled to face him so quickly Will halted on his step. She was right in front of the door and him one step behind. Panatalimon had turned into a pine-marten again and was wrapped around her ankle, just one. Kirjava was a cat again.

“Do you want to kiss me?” Lyra asked.

Will’s thoughts short-circuited, the only sound he made was Kirjava emitting a little chirp. Lyra blushed under the pink light from the PSYCHIC sign, spluttering a sigh. She rocked on her heels and then popped up to kiss his cheek, a hurried and cheery "Goodnight!" leaving her mouth and her hand going for the doorknob. It was locked, so she had to take a few more seconds to find her keys.

Will’s mouth closed with a _click_ , he hadn’t noticed it had parted.

“Uh,” he said. Then, “Yes.” Which caught Lyra’s attention and she looked at him again, instead of trying to find the key of the front door. (She could have knocked and Serafina or Lee would have opened it for her). “I… kinda want to kiss you.”

Lyra didn’t move, looking at him like a deer caught in headlights. Pantalaimon said, “You have to follow through with it now.”

It made Kirjava laugh and Will’s shoulders untensed some, enough for him to smile instead of also standing frozen, hands in his pockets and wide-eyed. Lyra said: “Oh, shut up, Pan” and her dæmon said: “What? You just asked him!”

“I do want to kiss you,” Will said, his voice was steadier and he sounded surer. Which was good, very good. “Since— yeah, since you asked.”

Lyra spun on her heel to face him directly, she took a step forward and Will almost stepped back. The crown of her head reached his nose. Lyra hesitated and Will didn’t move, what was he even supposed to do now that _kissing her_ was out in the open. Lyra rocked on her heels and to her toes, smacking her nose against Will’s and they both groaned but it turned into a laugh when their dæmons giggled. “I’m going to…” said Lyra but didn’t finish, just grabbing Will by the corners of the hood and pulling him down instead of her going up.

She kissed him. It was quick and she pulled away, Will’s heartbeat was on the top of his throat. Lyra’s eyebrows furrowed a bit, still holding onto the hoodie. Will wants to say _I liked it_ hoping that might ease her frown. A soft hum came from Lyra’s closed mouth, she let go of the hoodie and she caught Will by his neck to kiss him again. He nearly stumbled this time and had to grab Lyra’s arms to steady himself. He kissed her too, this time.

And Lyra kissed him two more times, rapid, one after the other before letting go.

“I hope they didn’t see us,” she said, looking through the pink neon eye.

Will exhaled, it came with a laugh and he let go of Lyra as well. “Goodnight, Lyra.”

Lyra looked at him again, pulled on her red apple earrings. Her smile cast a shadow over her mouth. “Night, Will— Parry.”

The door opened behind Lyra. Will caught sight of an arctic hare-dæmon first and then of Lee Scoresby under the threshold, he looked between the two of them and his dæmon hopped forward to greet Pantalaimon with a touch of her nose. "She's safe and sound," Will said after two- three seconds had passed. Lee Scoresby smiled and nodded at him. "Thank you, kid. Lyra, Serafina made you butter noodles." From the look Lyra gave Will, he assumed that was part of the _'comfort food'_ she had mentioned. A smile flickered on his mouth and she kept hers. Lee Scoresby tipped an invisible hat at Will as a final _thank you, again_ when Will assured he could get home by himself. The door closed.

"I think that went well," said Kirjava, settling on the basket of the bicycle. "That went well, right?"

"So... it is a date," Will's voice came out more like a question than a statement. "Having lunch tomorrow, I mean."

On the window, the neon sign blinked out. Kirjava said, "I think we have a date."


End file.
